Description:
S. 2912 would direct the Department of the Interior (DOI) to take into trust approximately 55 acres of land in Pinal County, Arizona, owned by the Gila River Indian Community. Under the bill, DOI would hold title to that land for the benefit of the tribe. The bill would require the tribe to fulfill reporting and surveying requirements in order for DOI to take the land into trust, and would prohibit certain types of gaming on those lands. Using information provided by DOI, CBO estimates that the administrative costs to implement S. 2912 would not be significant. S. 2912 would impose an intergovernmental mandate as defined in the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act (UMRA) by prohibiting state and local governments from taxing land taken into trust for the Gila River Indian Community. Information from Pinal County about taxes and other receipts associated with the land indicates that those foregone revenues would total less than $20,000 annually, which is far below the annual threshold established in UMRA ($84 million in 2020, adjusted annually for inflation). The bill contains no private-sector mandates. On September 1, 2020, CBO transmitted a cost estimate for H.R. 3160, the Blackwater Trading Post Land Transfer Act, as ordered reported by the House Committee on Natural Resources on January 15, 2020. The two bills are similar, and CBO’s estimates of their budgetary effects are the same.
